22/02/2017 100 Days

Mexico says it will not accept new US plans to send millions

of illegal immigrants back across the border.

And they will not hesitate to approach the United Nations

to defend immigrants, says the Foreign Minister of Mexico.

The strong words come as the US Head of Homeland Security

and the Secretary of State head to Mexico to discuss

The White House will scrap guidelines that say transgender

students should be allowed to use bathrooms which match

The British IS bomber released from Guantanamo Bay and then rewarded.

but now a riot in a suburb of Stockholm perhaps suggests

that there are problems with immigration in Sweden.

Grass roots opposition or "professional protestors"?

Republican Congressmen return to angry demonstrations

I'm Katty Kay in Washington - Christian Fraser's in London.

Mexico's Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray has said that his country

will NOT accept new "unilateral" US Immigration proposals,

and will not hesitate in approaching the United Nations

He went on to say that the new US proposals would be the main point

which will take place between Mexican officials, US

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Department of Homeland Security

White House press secretary Sean Spicer spoke of a positive relation

between the governments ahead of that visit.

I would argue that we have a very healthy and robust relationship with

the Mexican government and Mexican officials.

And I think they would echo that same sentiment.

President Nieto has echoed that as well.

But I think the relationship with Mexico is

phenomenal right now and I think there is an unbelievable and robust

Our North America Editor, Jon Sopel is here.

Phenomenal, I'm not sure about is how Mexico would describe it. Well

the twitter exchange roughly went President Trump, you are paying for

the wall, President Nieto, we are not. That was basically the

diplomacy that went on between Mexico and the US. It is not

phenomenal. Donald Trump is sending his best men to Mexico City to try

to get some kind of a deal. Listen to what the Mexican Foreign Minister

said, the government of Mexico and Mexican people do not have to accept

provisions that one government unilaterally wants to impose and we

will not accept it. There is no reason why we should. A phenomenally

good relationship! I would like to see one hitting the rocks. It will

be a big issue for Mexico because they are talking about deporting

millions of people and they want to send back not only the Mexicans but

non-Mexicans as well. And there is the question of, Mexico saying why

should we accept people from Central America coming into our country just

because you are deporting them from your country. I think it shows that

Donald Trump is undoubtedly following through on his election

campaign and he has a mandate but the problem is you need multilateral

discussion on such things and it seems at the moment for all that

there are people being sent to Mexico to smooth things over you get

the impression that both sides are shouting at each other instead of

figuring out a way that could meet the concerns of Donald Trump over

illegal immigrants with Mexican sensibilities saying we cannot just

be expected to take all these people back unilaterally.

As we've been discussing, the chief of Homeland Security

and the Secretary of State are both heading south but there is so much

ill will toward the Trump administration in Mexico right

now that it doesn't look like it's going to be

Our correspondent James Cook reports from Texas where many migrants

from Central America cross the border into the United States.

It's rodeo season deep in the heart of Texas.

This is a state with a proud heritage and tough people.

Texans will tell you they are God-fearing, cattle rearing,

Inside this arena it is strictly apolitical.

Outside, they do not mince their words.

What do you think of the idea of a wall?

There's definitely some security measures that might be put in place

that will hopefully help alleviate some of the illegal immigrants.

But I agree with him, you know, we need immigration.

Most of the time they need water but you do see some carrying

fully automatic weapons, and you better just keep on going.

And some parts of the frontier are easier to cross the others.

I'm sitting here on the very edge of the United States,

You could be across in a couple of minutes.

And apart from the river, this wire is the only physical barrier.

But ranchers worry about a barrier slicing through their fertile fields

and one Republican congressman says that a wall would be the most

expensive and least effective way to secure the border.

And across that divide every week come thousands of families

for whom this is a moment of pure joy.

She has been on the road from Honduras for 13 perilous days

Like everyone arriving here today, the family say violence and poverty

It was hard because when you are an adult you understand.

There are parts of the forest where you walk in the dark.

And when the police came, my little girl knew she had

The mass here has a Latin American rhythm.

And the Catholic Church is making the moral case

But this bishop says a secure border with Mexico depends on solving

problems elsewhere in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

People have a right to live in conditions in their own country

where they are safe and secure and can provide for their children.

And if they do not have those conditions, there

The Americas are connected and sometimes we do not always

These families have made it and are now applying for asylum.

But there may soon be another physical barrier to the fulfilment

Well we've already heard comments in the programme from the current

Let's get reaction now from a former holder of that post -

Jorge Castaneda joins us live now from Mexico City.

There will be many people coming back across Europe border, how will

you fight deportations to Mexico? The way I think we should fight

those deportations is in the United States. In the US law-enforcement

and justice system which is a very transparent, open and fair system in

general. And where there are a lot of courses that can be used to fight

these deportations, to fight the absence of due process which is what

these new guidelines signed yesterday by general Kelly seemed to

indicate. And where a series of important human rights

considerations, for example not dividing families, parents who have

American citizens ship, children etc, are taken into account. We

should fight these tours thumbnail, fight them with lawyers, with money,

with lobbies, everything we can because firstly these people have a

right to be in the United States even if they entered without papers.

They have since then sprung roots in the United States and that should be

taken into account. The money you're talking about may come from the

Mexican government. So would the idea being to launch as many court

cases as you can and to jam up the American court system? Absolutely,

that is what I think we should do, as many lawsuits and also as many

forms of legal jamming the system. For example forcing the Americans to

prove that the people they want to send to Mexico are Mexicans. Chan

spread the burden of proof to them. The Americans would have to prove

that the person they are deporting is a Mexican national and if they

cannot we will not let him in. And so on and so forth. There are a lot

of legal avenues that could be explored both on deportations, on

the wall itself and on the raids and round-ups taking place in the United

States. I thought one of the front pages of a newspaper in Mexico today

said Donald Trump had declared war on the undocumented. If this is war,

how else can you retaliate from the Mexican side within Mexico, are you

for example suggesting Mexico could withhold intelligence on drug

cartels or crime cartels that might be spreading into the US?

Intelligence on those but also reduce our security cooperation

which has been exemplary since 2001. On issues such as terrorism and

other forms, other problems and threats to the United States

security as well as stop doing the dirty work of the Americans for them

on the southern border and try to seal it off from Honduras and

Guatemala, who flee the violets in those countries. Only to want to go

to the United States. We have been now stopping them for two years and

there's no reason why we should continue to do that. We have a lot

of negotiating chips and obviously there are dangers in this. The

United States supplies more or less half of the natural gas that is

consumed in Mexico every day. The gas lines, the pipelines come from

Texas and other areas of the United States was up the president of the

United States has the legal authority to stop exports of natural

gas to Mexico. That is a real threat to Mexico, absolutely. He may even

have used it in private, we do not know. The fact is this is escalating

every day. And at some point Mexico will have to put its foot down.

Thank you very much. Sounds like the war that is

escalating faster than either side might be planning for.

Let's get the thoughts again of Brad Blakeman -

a Republican strategist and former senior White House

What did you make of our previous guest, the idea that if the

Americans start to send back millions of immigrants, some of whom

are not even Mexican, into Mexico, the Mexicans could retaliate and

imagine what might continue in particular is the idea of

retardation with drug cartels and intelligence surrounding them. It is

amazing the brazen way a former Mexican official basically threatens

the US that they do not even want to take back their own citizens or as

he told you, those who have come through his country to enter the

United States. What kind of neighbour is that Bill allows not

only their own people to flee so they're not a burden on their

country but facilitates others, in committing crimes here in the United

States. That is not a good neighbour. You may not like it but

it could end up as he suggested being a problem for the US. I want

to ask about one of the things that comes up in these new guidelines

from the Department of Homeland Security, a question of town, the

guidelines saying immigrants routinely victimise Americans. As

you know I'm sure that is not actually the case and there is a

lower crime rate in fact amongst immigrants in this country than

amongst Americans. Here is the problem. They have already committed

a crime by being in our country illegally. We have a right to

provide for our citizens first and foremost. But the president talks

about America first we should not be ashamed of that. We are a welcoming

country, we welcome millions of people into our country but you've

got to come in the right way. I do not think your country would permit

the kind of infiltration of illegal aliens and nor should our country.

Where a sovereign country, will respect the rights of Mexico and

they should respect us as well. If they cannot provide further people

then they should not come to the United States and expect us to

provide for their people. But America has been complicit in this

kind of immigration. We have open borders, we provided work and that

is why there must be a compassionate way to deal with the illegals that

are here. Whether it be a pathway to citizenship, work permits, there's

no question that we have some vulnerability and liability in this

situation. So so-called herds must prevail but with nothing to be

ashamed of in securing our border and making sure we provide for our

citizens first. We should just point out that President Obama deported

2.5 million people. More than any other US president in the 20th

century. So he had a record on deporting people. But just to pick

up one issue from that memo, it says in future agents will be able to

detain anyone even if there is a cause to believe that that person is

in violation of the immigration laws. This is the point I want to

put to you, that will make policing a lot more difficult. People will go

underground, they will be afraid to come forward with information and

police forces in inner cities might lose a crucial source of

intelligence. We also have another problem, Sanctuary cities. We have

mayors and governors in states providing sanctuary to illegals and

who refused to call for it with federal officials regarding federal

law. They must also be dealt with. But there's a silver lining, if we

start the crackdown and the president delivered to a wave of his

people to come out of the shadows and give them a relief either by

work permits or a pathway to citizenship, that could go a long

way for people to come out of the shadows. But right now we must

secure the border and crackdown on illegal aliens who are in our

country and providing crimes against our citizens. Thank you very much.

That is a good point that this was playing well for the president in

the polls. Many people in favour of tackling crimes in the cities and

many will think the president is doing the right thing. Consistently

been tougher on border security is something the majority of Americans

to write. I think the question will be does he really want 11 million

people to be deported because if they take the criteria as being that

anyone in the country who is there illegally, presumably they want all

of those 11 million people to go. How would Americans respond to that

if we suddenly had mass deportations I wonder if there would not be some

unease about whether that really reflected what the country like. Now

there is a headline about bathrooms and it featured in the press

conference today at the White House. The Trump administration is going to

revoke the federal guideline forcing public schools to let transgendered

children whose bathrooms that use bathrooms and locker room matching

their chosen identity. Why is that now a big issue? I knew you would

love this. So the number of transgender children is not clear,

we do not know how many people it might affect in public schools. It

is a big political issue and it was during the course of the election

campaign. Arguably for Democrats who made transgender bathrooms in public

schools, something president Obama put guidelines in place for, a big

issue. A lot of working-class and Democratic voters potentially said

hold on, the Democrats are talking about transgender bathrooms and I'm

concerned about my job. I think it lost them significant support in

some of those key rust belt states and certainly lost them North

Carolina. It had one of his BAFTA laws in place. A big political

issue. -- bathroom laws. You are saying the Democrats lost sight of

what was really important. It lost them support because it showed them

to be out of touch with working-class voters and their

concerns. They were focused on identity politics and not the issues

of jobs and the economy. The politics and economics of bathrooms!

The White House says it will soon publish a new travel order

to replace the one that was set aside by the Appeals

The key parts of that original Order suspended travel from seven

It is expected the new draft will make an exception for green

It is said to tighter and more streamlined

than the original order - so will it cause

Before we talk further, let's remind you how

This is wrong, and we are going to fight it.

We're going to have a very, very strict ban and we're

going to have extreme vetting, which we should have had in this

This is not, I repeat not, a ban on Muslims.

The judge's decision, effective now, puts a halt

to President Trump's unconstitutional and

We will be doing something very rapidly having to do with additional

You will be seeing that sometime next week.

In addition we will continue to go through the court process

and ultimately I have no doubt we will win that particular case.

Well Christian the one thing we know is that the world is watching

closely what happens here in Washington -

and the immigration ban only increased that attention.

Former Democratic Congresswoman - now president of the

What you think the impact of this immigration ban has been as regards

the United States and its standing amongst its allies? Well the band

will be replaced by something different imminently, some pieces of

that have already been produced. But I think the reaction worldwide is

somewhat confused. Many people thought it was harsh and certainly

the process of explaining it and rolling it out was confused. People

were in transit and they were held back in various airports, people had

a green card, at least initially they were not deemed to be valid

travel documents and so forth. And so I think most people would agree,

maybe not a few in the White House, that the process was terrible. And

the relevant secretaries were not consulted. I think reaction

worldwide to many of the Trump activities is confused. I was in

Munich at the security conference and there were 30 heads of state

there and 75 defence ministers. And those from Europe and certainly are

very confused about whether President Trump will support the

European Union or despite the promises of the vice president, will

support Nato. I was going to ask about that, to me watching that

Munich Security conference it seemed to me a string of American officials

from the Trump administration made the right noises for Europeans, said

the right things about Nato and European Union. You spoke to

European allies, do they trust that those people, those representatives,

actually reflect the positions of the president. Vice President Mike

Pence said he was speaking for the president. I've no doubt that he was

speaking for the president. However he did not take questions from a

very sophisticated audience and nor did the Secretary of Defence.

Everyone else who appeared there took questions including Angela

Merkel and the foreign ministers of Iran and Russia and elsewhere. They

all did and that left the impression that maybe the Trump administration

was not prepared to go to the second level. At any rate I think the

bottom line was there waiting to hear from President Trump Presley.

They see is Twitter messages as being out of sync with some

statements from his own cabinet and they're worried that he may have a

very, maybe marching to a different beat and he is driving all of this

ultimately, driving this foreign policy and not the government which

has very few confirmed people in it and people who take Rex Tillerson,

was not even in Washington for official state visit for Canada and

Israel. I was going to ask you about Rex Tillerson because he is going to

Mexico tomorrow and he will be very much in full view. But there is a

feeling that there are others taking away parts of his brief, Jared

Kushner, the son-in-law of the present looking after the Israel

brief. And then you know we have President Trump's lawyer coming to

the White House with a potential deal on Ukraine. It feels as if he

is constantly being undermined. The Ukraine deal has been denied, so I'm

assuming there is no veracity to that. In terms of Rex Tillerson been

undermined, he does not have a state department staff at the top to help

him. He is an experienced businessman but not an experienced

diplomat and his choice for deputy was rejected after meeting with

President Trump. It is hard to do a huge job like that basically solo.

So he gets high marks, the Wilson Centre knows him well and we

certainly respect his business service. But he has an uphill climb

as do others. The Obama White House in Venice was a pretty top-down

White House as well. But again the Cabinet departments were fully

staffed and the President's style totally different from the style of

this president. Thank you very much. Fascinating to think how much allies

are watching what is happening here in the US and almost all of them

confused about what the White House really wants. It is an issue. You

have the vice president and James matters almost contradicting what

the president said during the campaign. Of course that is what

Europe -- Europe and Nato want to hear.

You're watching 100 Days from BBC News.

Still to come for viewers on the BBC News Channel

and BBC World News - foe turned friend -

the campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron gets

Francois Bayrou says he's doing it to stop what he called

'the failure of France' - that's still to come on 100

We have some stormy weather on the way. Doris bearing down on the UK

and it will strike tomorrow morning. Before that happens we also have a

period of snow affecting parts of Scotland through the course of

tonight. Into the early hours of the morning and certainly the Southern

uplands have an amber warning in force and still through the central

lowlands as well. The real story later on will be the wind from storm

Doris, slamming into north-western parts of England. North Wales as

well another warning from the Met office. In more detail now, gusts of

up to 80 miles an hour in places, inland as well, very strong and

damaging winds moving through the Midland into East Anglia and further

south also feeling the effects of the storm. There could be some

overturned vehicles and some structural damage in places by the

time we are finished with this storm. Stay tuned to your forecasts

and take care. Mexico says it will not accept

President Trump's plans to send millions of illegal immigrants

back across the border. The former Mexican Foreign Minister

told us his country The fact is this is escalating every

day and at some point Mexico's Coming up - Republican Congressmen

return to angry demonstrations at their local town halls -

but the White House calls the crowds This is 100 Days with me

Christian Fraser in London - You might remember on Monday we were

talking about President Trump's weekend rally in Florida

and his vague but - pointed - critique of Sweden's

immigration policy. You look at what is happening last

night in Sweden, Sweden! Who would believe this? Sweden! They took in

large numbers, having problems like they never thought possible.

In fact nothing happened on the Friday night.

And soon the confusion gave way to ridicule.

Mr Trump responded - he was referring he said

to a Fox News report about rising crime in Sweden.

But then something did happen on Monday night.

Riots broke out - in Rinkeby, a predominantly immigrant

Ten cars were set on fire, shop fronts were smashed and police

fired warning shots to disperse an angry crowd.

So is the President right to highlight problems that Sweden

has had with immigration? We can speak to Ylva Johansson,

Swedish Minister for Employment and Integration.

I have never heard of a minister for integration, is that specific to

Sweden? I don't know actually! Let me read

the some of the comments I read this morning. This is from an appointed

member of a local board in Rinkeby where the riots were and he says,

the situation in Rinkeby is not good, the police don't have control

over the area. If you said you had a problem with integration in Sweden,

you would be called a racist. That is not true. Of course, there are

problems with integration but you have to realise, of course, we are a

society on earth, we're not paradise. People commit crimes. We

have that problem. When we compare Sweden to other countries, we have a

low level of crime. We have a low level of violence and deftly

violence. We have quite a strong society and we are quite well

equipped to handle all sorts of challenges we are facing. Last year,

Sweden, 9.5 million people, granted residency to 150,000 immigrants in

one year. That is a lot to deal with and if you look at the polls, it is

the anti-immigration party, the Sweden Democrats, on the rise and

they could be the biggest party they say, by 2018. That would suggest a

lot of people have concerns. I don't think the racist party will be that

big and they are not rising in polls any more. Of course, having these

are so many refugees in a short time, of course that causes some

problems. We have huge housing problems, we have problems with

teachers, not enough teachers in schools and of course challenges to

help people to learn Swedish coming to the labour market, but cannot see

a connection between crimes and immigration. We have been an

immigration country for 20 years. We have taken a lot of immigrants to

Sweden and that the same time, the crime level has gone down. So we

can't see that connection. But those newcomers coming to my country, they

are human beings, as we are who already live here, and some people

commit crimes and that is a problem but most people do not and that is

the same for us who live here and those newcomers. I wanted to put to

use something Nigel Farage, the former leader of the UK Independence

party has said about Sweden, calling Stockholm the rape capital of

Europe, possibly even of the world. His implication is that actually

with an influx of immigrants and particularly a lot of young male

immigrants, the crime rate particularly around sexual crimes

has risen in the capital. He does not really know what he's talking

about. When we make service about... If any woman has been... If there

has been a rape towards her or sexual harassment, we can see the

level is going down and down and down. But we encourage women to

actually report to the police and we also broaden the scope of what we

define as a rape, because we would like every woman, because every rape

is one rape too many. We encourage every woman to report to the police

so we have a high level of reporting to the police and it is good they

report and of course, it is bad if rape is committed, but when we make

service at the actual level of rapes is not high in Sweden. I realise you

are not the Foreign Minister but I want to ask you a question of

diplomacy. I surprised where you buy the comments of Donald Trump over

the weekend and by the perception at least that he was picking a rather

curiouser row with somebody who is an ally of the United States? I was

very surprised and I think also all Swedes were. Does it and you? Why do

you think you did it? You must ask him. The President of course can say

whatever he wants. I was very surprised and started to make a lot

of jokes here in Sweden about that speech. It gave rise to quite a lot

on Twitter. I have to say, I did enjoy reading some of the Twitter

entries over the last few days but there we are. Minister, thank you

for being with us. It was around about this time

yesterday that we were talking about the French Presidential

candidate, Emmanuel Macron - he was campaigning here in London,

trying to secure the votes of 200,000 expats who

call the city home. Today, Mr Macron got a welcome boost

from a potential rival - this man, veteran campaigner

Francois Bayrou, who's offered to back him,

rather than stand against him. I know the French have a history of

voting tactically, they did it in 2015 when they thought Marine Le Pen

was going to do well and parties coalesced against her. How much is

this going to help Macron, what does Francois Bayrou normally poll? He

got 9% in the last election which was disappointing to him but that

was about 3 million votes. This could come down in the first round

to a couple of percentage points so it could be quite significant. It

increases this feel-good factor around Emmanuel Macron at the

moment. That someone like Francois Bayrou, the perennial third man in

French politics for a long time, he has said he is a good thing and

something he wants to get behind. Then compare that with what is

happening in the party that Macron left, the Socialist party, there

could be a similar alliance between the centre and the hard left. A

comment tonight, says, I would not time itself to the Socialists, it

would be like hanging myself to a hearse. You can see this is good for

Macron. You will have to fight with me for the right to go and cover

those French elections because I can see you are angling for it right

now! That is the advantage of being in London of course! Thereof flights

from Washington and Paris, I can tell you!

Britain's Supreme Court has upheld the government's right to set

a minimum wage that its citizens must earn before bringing a foreign

A rule adopted five years ago requires people to be earning more

than $23,000 before their spouses can join them.

The court ruled that the measures don't breach

Turkey's president Tayyip Erdogan could meet US President Donald Trump

The two leaders were already likely to meet on the sidelines

of a Nato summit in May - but a presidential spokesman

in Ankara said on Wednesday that efforts were being made for both men

A woman has been appointed as Britain's most

Cressida Dick becomes the first female to head

the Metropolitan Police in London in its 200-year history.

Her selection is not without controversy -

in 2005 she was the commander in charge of the operation

in which the innocent Brazilian - Jean Charles de Menezes -

The US space agency Nasa has announced the discovery of seven

Earth-sized exo-planets. They're called exo-planets

because they orbit stars other than our sun.

The planets are circling an "ultracool" dwarf star

called Trappist One, located about 39 light years away.

Scientists believe these newly discovered worlds could hold life.

I think I have a headache just thinking about that, how many light

years? How many minutes is that? The streets of Washington DC

are pretty empty this week because Senators and Congressmen

have returned home to take questions Some of them are getting

a rather frosty welcome. This was the scene that greeted

Senate Majority Leader Mitch The protest was one of many

across the country, at town hall The demonstrators confronted

lawmakers about issues ranging from the President's immigration

plans to his tax returns. He wrote - "The so-called angry

crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually,

in numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists.

Sad!" It appears that has made a return to

Twitter lexicon. I thought that under the US constitution, everyone

had every right to exercise their right to assemble. So why have they

been allowed to protest outside town halls? -- why are they not allowed?

There is nothing to stop them. The indication from Mr Trump was that

these people were stopping some sort of organised protest. A lot of what

these people complained about is to do with Obamacare and the

replacement to Obamacare. The White House, remember, said they would

repeal and replace Obamacare on day one. That was the campaign promise

of Donald Trump. The White House has said in the last few hours that the

replacement part of the proposition will not come until the middle of

March. The President's idea is that this is not organic, people coming

out of their own volition, but an organised event with left-wing

agitators bussing people in? Yes, and remember at the beginning of the

Obama administration in 2009, the Democrats also went back to their

districts, around this time of year, held town halls and faced angry

crowds, equally frustrated with health care reform and didn't like

what the White House was proposing. It had an impact on those Democratic

congressmen and women and they then come back to Washington and talk to

the White House and say hold on a second, our voters are not happy and

we are getting all of this. So we may change the way we vote.

Well, coming up on the BBC News Facebook page,

We will be back at the same time tomorrow.